At a recent social media training event, I recommended WordPress (self hosted) as one of the best platforms for developing and publishing yourself as an authority site, i.e. a site that is respected for it’s content, so that your customers and prospects can visit, and keep up to date with what you are up to.

Well one of the questions that come out of it was:

“What do you believe are the most essential plugins for wordpress?”

We’ll to answer that is somewhat difficult, because it depends upon the purpose of your site! I have some sites that are news related, some that are professional, some that are community. One common element is to get them ranked on google so that people can find the site easily, so naturally anything to do with expanding the site’s outward and inward bound links are essential.

Now I’ve been running wordpress sites since the days of 1.5, and was one of the early installers and extenders of WordPress MU and Buddypress, so I’ve been right in the thick of it for a while, and some plugins are now no longer needed as the functionaility of the the core application has improved, so here is my list of plugins that I use across various site,

E = Essential, i.e. I use it on ALL my sites D = Default, i.e. I install it on all my sites, though on some it is not activated as it isn’t needed. O = Optional, i.e. it is installed on some sites. N = Not Active i.e it is installed (be default), but not active of any site.

Having installed and de-installed literally hundreds of plugins to give me the customisation that I want or need in a particular instance, with the list below, I rarely have to search around any further.

The list below is my current list of plugins that I maintain in a Google Docs spreadsheet (more on Google Docs to follow!)

Plugin

Version

Essential / Default / Optional / Not Active

Description

Akismet

2.3.0

E

"Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need an API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under ""Comments."" To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin."

Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. ** The BEST of loads **

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

3.15

O

Generates a fully customizable sitemap

Daiko’s Text Widget

0.9.4

O

"Works basically like the Text widget, but it will also take PHP code and includes conditional tags to specify where to show. An extension of the Execphp widget by Otto at http://ottodestruct.com."

Duplicate Post

1.1.1

O

Creates a copy of a post.

Exec-PHP

4.9.0

D

"Executes <?php ?>code in your posts, pages and text widgets."

FeedBurner FeedSmith

2.3.1

O

"Originally authored by Steve Smith, this plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber."

Google XML Sitemaps

3.2.4

E

"This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog."

HeadSpace2

3.6.33

D

"Meta-data manager on steroids, allowing complete control over all SEO needs such as keywords/tags, titles, description, stylesheets, and many many other goodies."

Hello Dolly

1.5.1

N

"This is not just a plugin, it symbolizes the hope and enthusiasm of an entire generation summed up in two words sung most famously by Louis Armstrong: Hello, Dolly. When activated you will randomly see a lyric from Hello, Dolly in the upper right of your admin screen on every page."

"Menu managers enables you to manage blog menu very easy. You can add Pages, Categories, and Custom Link into your blog menu." Superseded by WordPress 3 on SOME themes – useful on legacy sites with older themes)

My Category Order allows you to set the order in which categories will appear in the sidebar. Uses a drag and drop interface for ordering. Adds a widget with additional options for easy installation on widgetized themes.

Page Links To

2.3.0

O

Allows you to point WordPress pages or posts to a URL of your choosing. Good for setting up navigational links to non-WP sections of your site or to off-site resources.

"A WordPress plugin which adds a menu to your WordPress site. Visit the PixoPoint Menu Plugin page for more information about the plugin, or our navigation support board for help with adding the menu to your theme." (Superseded by WordPress 3 on SOME themes – useful on legacy sites with older themes)

Snap Shots™ Plugin for WordPress.org

2

O

"Add Snap Shots to your website or blog. Snap Shots enhance links with visual previews of the destination site, including summaries of Wikipedia and IMDb, YouTube videos, stock charts, RSS feeds and more with just a single line of javascript. Go to Options >> Snap Shots to configure."

Allows you to choose what posts appear on the front page of your blog by category or tags.

TinyMCE Advanced

3.2.7

E

"Enables advanced features and plugins in TinyMCE, the visual editor in WordPress."

Traffic Getting SEO PluginTM Free Version

0.4.7

E

Traffic Getting SEO Plugin finds the best SEO plugins available for wordpress and then optimizes their settings so you don’t have to. Saves you time and helps get you more traffic. Jeff Johnson | By Jeff Johnson | Visit plugin site : http://www.undergroundtraininglab.com/

"The WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site and blog. It includes a mobile switcher, filtered widgets, and content adaptation for mobile device characteristics. Activating this plugin will also install a selection of mobile themes by ribot, a top UK mobile design team, and Forum Nokia. These adapt to different families of devices, such as Nokia and WebKit browsers (including Android, iPhone and Palm). If enabled, your site will be listed on mpexo, a directory of mobile-friendly blogs. Also check out the documentation and the forums. If you like the plugin, please rate us on the WordPress directory. And if you don’t, let us know how we can improve it!"

"With WP Main Menu you can create a great menu with links to categories, pages, posts, tags and more for WordPress" (Superseded by WordPress 3 on SOME themes – useful on legacy sites with older themes)

WPaudio

2.2.0

O

"Play mp3s and podcasts in your posts by converting links and tags into a simple, customizable audio player."

wp-cache

2.1.2

E

"Very fast cache module. It’s composed of several modules, this plugin can configure and manage the whole system. Once enabled, go to ""Options"" and select ""WP-Cache""."

Here’s the READ ME:

+---------------------------------------+
| |
| Multi-Site EZ- Pages Module. |
| |
| Created by Gordon Bunker |
| gordon@gjbenterprises.com |
| http://www.gjbenterprises.com |
| |
| Couldn't have been |
| done without: |
| Based on the work by Gerome Romey |
| of Medea International Ltd |
| http://www.medea.co.uk/dev/ |
| and Jim Katz |
| |
+---------------------------------------+
This modification will allow you to choose which EZ-Pages
are shown on each site just like categories
The modifications were done on Zen-cart 1.3.8 and Multisite Version: 0.4.2
http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&amp;products_id=563
No warranty is implied or given
** IMPORTANT **
BEFORE YOU IMPLEMENT ANY OF THESE MODIFICATIONS
CREATE A BACKUP OF YOU FILES AND DATABASE
This file contains 9 files, this READ_ME.txt
2 screenshots and 6 other Files
4 of these are modified files of the standard zen-cart installation
If you have already customised these, you will need to make the changes manually
#################################################
1 SQL File to add an extra field to the ezpages table - I tried using the HTML
content field however the ez-pages admin program didn't like the extra code
stored there as it checks the content length to avoid clashes with links etc!
So I added an extra field ezpages_description, here's the sql if you need to
run it via phpMyAdmin:
multisite_ezpages.sql
here's the code:
ALTER TABLE ezpages ADD ezpages_description TEXT;
#################################################
1 ADDITTIONAL File - A new filter function based on the cat filter function
in this case it filter the EZ-Pages based on the contents of the
ezpages_description field
\includes\functions\extra_functions\ezpages_filter.php
#################################################
3 MODIFIED files that filter out the pages, when displaying the EZ-Pages menus
on a site, it is a simple function modification to each of the Execute
statements
\includes\modules\ezpages_bar_footer.php
\includes\modules\ezpages_bar_header.php
\includes\modules\sideboxes\ezpages.php
#################################################
1 MODIFIED Admin file to enter the site filters
I had a challenge getting to grips with the code for the categories maintenance
function, so I modified the EZ-Pages maintenance routine (If anyone is up for
writing the enhancement/modification for \admin\multisite.php go for it!)
This displays the extra information on the summary block and adds the new field
in on the insert / edit page, see the 2 screenshots
Multisite_EZPages_ScreenShot_01.jpg
Multisite_EZPages_ScreenShot_02.jpg
\admin\ezpages.php
################################################################################
To use this additional module: In the new field on the EZ-Pages edit screen
(Admin / Tools / EZ-Pages , choose your page and select Edit)
enter text in the same manner as for the categories, i.e.
&lt;!--Site Name 1-Site Name 2--&gt;
Where Site Name 1 and Site Name 2 are the names of the sites store in the
domainname_config.php file(s)
where it says:
define('SITE_NAME','Site Name 1');
If you have access to phpMyAdmin, you can run the following routine to quickly
populate all your EZ-Pages, and then edit them later
UPDATE ezpages
SET ezpages_description = "&lt;!--Site Name 1-Site Name 2--&gt;"
Enjoy!
Gordon Bunker
gordon@gjbenterprises.com
http://www.gjbenterprises.com

Welcome to GJB Enterprises, we specialise in helping YOU achive more out of the internet.

Wether that is a website, a blog, a social network, a discussion forum, a member site, a sales page, an e-commerce site, or an Amazon shop, we can set these up for you and we can show you how to dominate google!

We can also optimise your site, do custom integration and custom programming.

To give you just what you need when you want it at a price you can afford.